The Starving Prince of Lucis
by ThisIsTheDungeonThatNeverEnds
Summary: They really don't feed people enough at these fancy events, so Noctis decides to find his own food.


**If this looks familiar, it has been previously posted to my AO3 account under the same name.**

* * *

It was thirty minutes until midnight at Boomerang's Diner in upper Insomnia. Seventeen year old Myra's twelve hour waitressing shift was almost over and her feet hurt. It had been a good tip day, though, so she could not complain much.

She had just finished clearing what she guessed would be her last table of the night; it was usually pretty slow after 10:30, maybe a few drunk stragglers here and there. Suddenly the door slammed open and the bells clattered and jingled against the glass. Myra looked up from refilling the salt shaker expecting to see such a straggler, but instead she had to do a double take at what she DID see. In the doorway of the hole-in-the-wall diner stood the very image of elegance. A young man, not much older than herself, dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit with a silver sash and bow tie. She thought she recognized him, and the more she looked at him, the more she was certain that she would be a fool NOT to recognize him. Standing six feet away from her was the Crown Prince of Lucis, Noctis Lucis Caelum himself. He looked directly at the young waitress with...was that panic she saw?

"Please tell me you're sill open!"

"Um," she blinked rapidly and stood straight, smoothing out her coffee-stained apron. "Yes, Your Highness. We're open 24-7."

The prince gracelessly flopped into the nearest booth and sighed. "Thank the Six."

Myra, still dumbfounded, produced her pen and guest check note pad from her apron pocket. "What can I get you to drink this evening?"

She watched the prince rub his temples, eyes closed and frowning. "Can I get, like, an entire pitcher of soda?"

Myra raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, sure," having forgotten for a moment who she was speaking to, she corrected herself quickly. "I mean, of course, Your High-"

"Stop!" the out-of-place royal interrupted. "Stop it with all the Your Higness-ing. Do you have any idea what I've already had to put up with tonight?"

Myra shook her head wordlessly.

Noctis laughed humorlessly. "Well..."

* * *

 _two hours earlier_

Noctis paced up and down the tables of food, or at least what the Master of Ceremonies thought nobility thought considered food, grimacing at every hors d'oeuvre he came across.

They all had either unpronounceable (and equally inedible) vegetables, clumps of fish eggs, or both. Noctis groaned as his stomach growled for the fourth time in an hour. He was _starving_ and this was _not_ food.

Luckily, a familiar voice came to distract him from the hideous display.

"Enjoying the party, Your Highness?"

Noctis turned around to see Ignis approaching, carrying two glasses of wine. The adviser offered one to Noctis, who took it politely but had exactly -73% intentions of actually drinking it.

"Not particularly," Noctis answered. "What is all this stuff anyway?" he asked, gesturing to the spread of not-food behind him.

Ignis withheld the urge to roll his eyes. "Those would be hors d'oeuvres traditional of Accordo, the country whose dignitaries we are honoring with these festivities. As prince, you really should familiarize yourself more with cultures and customs."

"Yeah, yeah." Noctis turned back to the table to make one last attempt to find something at least marginally palatable. He froze in horror when he noticed a trey of spiral shells with some sort of chunky green sauce in the opening.

"Ignis," he said, pointing at the trey of...something, "Those. Are. SNAILS."

"Ah, yes. That would be escargot."

Noctis stepped back from the table, as if expecting the dead, sauce-drenched snails to leap off the table and attack him. "How about escarSTOP before I puke!"

Ignis really did roll his eyes this time. "Noctis, someday you'll have to learn to at least stomach some of these food items. When you're king-"

"No, when I'm king, I'm going to serve pizza. Pizza and beer, not," he shook his head and set his glass of wine down on the table, "not snails and wine."

"Noctis, you can't-"

"If it crawled out from under a rock, I'm not eating it. If some chick's feet have been in it, I'm not drinking it."

"That isn't how they press wine anymore and you know it!" Ignis argued, becoming irritated at his prince's apparent lack of "culture."

"I don't care!" Noctis shouted, drawing the attention of several nearby guests, and walked off.

"Noctis," Ignis called after him, "Where are you going?"

"To find food!"

* * *

By this point in the prince's story, Myra had seated herself in the seat opposite Noctis in the booth. She laughed at his description of how he ditched his adviser.

"So, what then?" Myra asked. "You just left the party?"

"Took me half an hour to get out of there after I left Ignis," he answered. "People I can't stand kept coming up to me, all 'good evening Your Highness' and 'spectacular party, wouldn't you say, Your Highness' or 'Your, Highness, may I ask your opinion on blah blah blah' I'm so passed done with it."

"And so passed starving," Myra added. "So what kind of food do you want? I promise snails are NOT on our menu."

"That's a relief. Tell you what, just bring me the biggest, greasiest, cheesiest heart attack between two buns that you can make. And a big pile of fries. No veggies on that burger. None. Like, don't even let it touch a pickle."

Myra nodded. "I've got you, Noctis." she got up and left the table, disappearing behind a partition and returning with a pitcher of soda and a straw, which she set down in front of Noctis before taking a seat again. "We have a spacial here: the Boomerang Behemoth. It doesn't come with veggies and if you can eat the entire thing, it's free and you get a tshirt. Tanner's cooking it up right now."

Noctis grinned and took a drink of soda straight from the pitcher. "That's what I'm talking about."

"So while we wait, I'd like to here more about this Ignis character."

"Well, I couldn't ask for a better adviser. He IS quite the character though..."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, it took Tanner (the cook) and Elli (the waitress who came in at midnight to take over for Myra) to safely carry the trey. The burger was easily bigger than Noctis' head, with a side of fries just as huge. Noctis stared with an awestruck smile as they set the trey gently on the table.

"You guys don't fool around, do you?" Noctis said, a bit breathless. "Now THAT'S food!"

Tanner and Elli stepped back from the table and bowed, an over-exaggerated gesture that was meant to be comical. "This, Your Highness, is the Boomerang Behemoth," Tanner announced. "Two and a half pounds of meat and a third pound of cheese on a sesame seed bun, one pound of fries, seasoned to perfection with our special seasoning. Few have dared to take the challenge head on, and few who do succeed. But I'm sure it should be no challenge at all for our future king, right?"

"How to I bite it?" Noctis asked, still unable to stop staring at the enormous burger.

"Allow me," Tanner said and produced a large kitchen knife from seemingly nowhere.

"Where were you hiding that!?" Noctis exclaimed. Tanner laughed and cut the burger into forths. "If you were an assassin and not a short order cook, I'd be in trouble."

"The only thing killing you tonight is a heart attack from that burger," Myra said, "so you best enjoy it. I better be heading home. Bring your adviser by some time, I'd like to meet him."

"Yeah, sure thing." Noctis assessed on of the burger quarters and carefully picked one up. It took some twisting, tilting, and almost dislocating his jaw, but he managed to figure out how to get his mouth around enough of the massive burger to take a big, cheesy, greasy bite.

And. It. Was. Heaven.

* * *

Almost half an hour and half the burger later, the door to the diner slammed open for the second time that night.

Noctis turned casually out of curiosity…

And died a little inside.

"Damn,' he mumbled under his breath.

There in the doorway stood Gladio, phone in hand, looking at Noctis like the prince had just cursed the Ameticia name.

"Noctis what the HELL! I had to track your damn phone to find you!"

"Don't start this, Gladio. In my position you would have done the same thing."

"No, in your position I would have schmoozed up the some dignitaries and, I don't know, THE NEWLY ELECTED FIRST SECRETRARY OF ACCORDO and made connections that might come in handy in the future instead of RUDELY disappearing!"

Noctis shrugged and shoved three fries in his mouth at once. "I can't politic on an empty stomach, Gladio," he said with his mouth full.

Gladio growled and sat down in the booth opposite Noctis. "When are you going to learn your place in this world, Noct." He absentmindedly reached for a fry on Noctis' play, which resulted in Noctis slapping his hand away. Gladio looked wordlessly at Noctis with angered confusion.

"I have to eat this whole thing myself to get the tshirt. Order your own, and I'm not paying for you."

"Tshirt? You better not have ditched a party your own kingdom was hosting in honor of the first female Accordian First Secretary for a tshirt."

Noctis shook his head. "I ditched a party my own kingdom was hosting in honor of the first female Accordian First Secretary for a BURGER. Tshirt's just a perk."

Gladio shook his head and mumbled some sort of expletive. "You know, the only reason I'm not dragging you out of this diner, beating your bratty ass and hauling you back to the citadel over my shoulder is I know that food was nasty."

"I know, right?" Noctis said around another bite of burger.

Gladio sighed and motioned to Elli to come over.

"Can I help you, sir?"

Gladio looked at Elli and pointed to Noctis' plate. "Can I get one of those?"

* * *

The next morning, a photograph of the Crown Prince and his body guard exiting a diner dressed in ketchup-stained royal attire covered the front of the Crown City Times. The King was not pleased.

* * *

Also the next morning, Noctis and Gladio proudly sported their matching (pink) Boomerang's Diner tshirts around the citadel. No one but them would admit to being amused, but the diner did have a seemingly random spike in business.

* * *

Myra was able to use the tip she received that night to replace the cracked windshield on her car, Elli used hers to but new cloths for her ten year old son, and Tanner bought an engagement ring for his girlfriend of two years. She said yes.

* * *

Noctis took Ignis to Boomerang's a few weeks later to meet Myra. She was instantly smitten and slipped him her phone number with the check. She was slightly (extremely) disappointed (heartbroken) when he text messaged once, saying that she was a lovely young lady but, flattered as he was, she was too young for him and he was not interested in pursuing a relationship.


End file.
